South Korea surged up the medals table thanks to their short-track speed skating champions but China still dominated the Asian Winter Games with four new titles.

China won the women's 3,000m relay with an Asian record of 4:13.293 at the sixth Asian Winter Games on January 31, 2007. South Korea finished second in 4:13.391. [Xinhua]

The host nation has 12 gold medals, against seven for Japan and six for South Korea. Kazakhstan finally joined the gold standard with two cross country titles.

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In speed skating, China won two of the four golds on offer with Wang Fei adding the 1,500m title to her 5,000m victory on Monday, both achieved in Asian record times.

Wang, 24, won in 2min 01.49sec, relegating Lee Ju-Youn of South Korea into second place with China's Ji Jia third.

China's second gold went to women's sprinter Xing Aihua in the 100m. She beat teammate Wang Beixing, the 500m winner on Tuesday, into second place with Lee Sang-Hwa of South Korea third.

Japan scored a gold in the men's 100m through Yuya Oikawa who beat Yu Fengtong of China and Lee Kang-Seok of South Korea into second and third place.

South Korea's Lee Kyou Hyuk snatched the men's 1,500m title, equalling the Asian record of 1min 49.13sec with Gao Xuefeng of China second and Mun Joon of South Korea third.

In short-track speed skating South Korea took three of four titles with Olympic champion Ahn Hyun-Soo winning the men's 1,000m race and Jin Sun-Yu winning in the women's 1,000m.

South Korea's men then made it three golds with victory in the 5000m relay but China ensured that there was no South Korean sweep of all four medals on offer on the night by claiming the women's 3,000m gold.

In cross country Kazakhstan won their first gold medals of the Asian Games, taking both races on Wednesday.

In the women's 5km classical, Oxana Yatskaya won in 15min 57.73sec ahead of compatriot Svetlana Malakhova. China's Wang Chunli was third.

Kazakhstan swept the men's 30km free skiing with Maxim Odnodvortsev winning in 1hr 22min 44sec from Andrey Kondryshev and Andrey Golovko.

Olympic silver medalist Li Nina led a Chinese sweep in the freestyle skiing women's aerials despite high winds and falling snow.

Second came 17-year-old Xu Mengtao with teammate Zhang Xin third.

However, under competition rules requiring that no one nation can win all the medals, 16-year-old Maral Unenbat of Mongolia, who finished fifth behind four Chinese, was awarded the bronze.

In the giant slalom Emiko Kiyosawa of Japan claimed her country's second gold medal of the day ahead of Oh Jae-Eun and Kim Sun-Joo of South Korea.